State officials removed millions of people from voter rolls in 2014. The purges disproportionately affected minority or low-income voters in some communities and white voters in others, a News21 analysis shows.

Race and Rights

Nowhere in America is the debate over voting rights more symbolic than in Shelby County, Alabama where Frank “Butch” Ellis successfully sued the U.S. Department of Justice over provisions of the Voting Rights Act, a move civil rights activists in the South say left the African-American vote at its most vulnerable in decades.

Since the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, black representation in Congress has grown to near parity with America’s racial composition, except in the South, where political representation still does not resemble the community.

Power and Privilege

For years, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been a strident foe of illegal immigration, pushing for Kansans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote. Though repeatedly defeated in court, one remaining case will decide whether thousands of Kansans will be able to vote in November.

Texas Sheriff Pamela Elliott diligently enforces voting laws in the West Texas town of Rocksprings. But like most of Texas, none of those involved voter impersonation.

California is the first and only state to pass a law that essentially allows plaintiffs to sue jurisdictions to switch from an at-large to a district voting system. Advocates say it helps ensure minorities have a better chance of electing people who understand their neighborhoods.

Want to increase or decrease voter turnout in your state? Try your hand at passing legislation to game the system.

Facing the Future

America’s Latino population jumped from 4 percent in 1965 to nearly 20 percent in 2015. More than 55 million Latinos now live in the U.S. and an expected 27.3 million will be eligible to vote in November. But a longstanding gap remains between those who can vote and those who will.